Pierre Borghi was held shackled in a hole in the ground after being kidnapped in Afghanistan by the Taliban.Source: Supplied

LOVE. Friends. Hugs. Talk. Family. Ukulele.

They are among the words scribbled by Pierre Borghi on a smuggled sheet of paper while he was held shackled in a hole in the ground after being kidnapped in Afghanistan by the Taliban.

For the four months he was held and fed on a meagre diet, they helped keep his hopes alive and gave him the mental strength to make a daring escape.

Borghi, a 29-year-old with degrees in sociology and urban planning, went to Afghanistan last year to look for a job as an aid worker and to try his luck at earning a living as a photographer.

On the night of November 27, in his second week in the country, he was in a safe area of the capital, Kabul.

He was walking home from a bar to spend a quiet night watching a movie, when a car pulled up in front of him and four men jumped out.

Bearded and in traditional Afghan dress, the men grabbed Borghi and started pushing him to the car and when he resisted, pulled out a gun.

Blindfolded and his hands bound behind his back, Borghi was placed in the boot of the car and driven to a spot where he was placed in the first of two holes in the ground where he would be held captive.

The men told him they were al-Qaeda, from the Taliban, and they had taken him because he was a Westerner and therefore his country was at war with Afghanistan.

They gave him paper on which to write down who he was, so they could check he wasn't a spy, which would mean immediate execution.

Borghi managed to hold on to a sheet of paper which he used to write a "wish list" of the things important to him.

The words scribbled on this smuggled sheet of paper kept Pierre Borghi sane throughout his ordeal.Source: Supplied

After 10 days he was taken to the house of an Afghan family and then to another hole in the ground.

"There was no light, none at all," he told the BBC.

"I was kept there for the next three-and-a-half months. I was only allowed out three or four times, to shoot ransom videos.

"My hands and my feet were chained together."

All the while, Borghi had the sheet of paper with him.

He was often hungry and he would mentally prepare dream recipes.

He also drafted projects in his head and the blueprints for houses and towns.

"I also started talking to myself and singing songs. I thought to myself: 'Don't worry, you're talking aloud, but you need it and are conscious of it," he told the BBC.

"I also talked to the people I loved - or imagined I talked to them - and prayed a bit."

The meagre amount of food being given to him by his captors was to prove his saviour.

The chains of his shackles had become loose enough for him to get a foot and hand free.

He had lost about 11kgs and began to venture through the trapdoor of his hole, and explore the surroundings.

"I started to nurture a hope that I might escape," he said.

But, calculating that he might die trying to escape during the Afghans winter, he decided to wait out the cold weather.

On the morning of March 28, he was taken out of his hole to film another video to be sent to French authorities demanding ransom money.

The men told him he would be killed soon, as France was not responding to the Taliban's demands.

He was given letters his family had written and sent through the secret services, and put back in the hole.

Borghi took 10 more days to make up his mind, and decided the Taliban might execute him "to cut away what was becoming an embarrassing loose end" for them.

"There was a tiny window in the barn, about three metres above the ground," he said.

"On the night of April 7, I wrapped my chains - still attached to one arm and one leg - in some rags to keep them quiet.

"Then I got out of my hole and climbed up to the window on some discarded furniture."

Able to wriggle through the window because of the weight he'd lost on the "Taliban diet", Borghi stumbled up the road into the night.

He walked for up to 10 hours, eventually finding himself at a building guarded by a military policeman.

While he waited for the Afghan authorities to make background checks, he thought about "how, at that very moment, my keepers would be coming to check on me".

"I couldn't help smiling to myself as I thought of their faces as they lifted the trapdoor to my hole, which I had been so careful to close again after I got out."

A NOTE ABOUT RELEVANT ADVERTISING: We collect information about the content (including ads) you use across this site and use it to make both advertising and content more relevant to you on our network and other sites.